SurVision Magazine
An
international online magazine that
publishes Surrealist poetry in English.
Issue
Nine
PEARL BUTTON
how life gets its start
insects against
glass, slow
heat of midnight under netting
living here is living under the sea's
uterine alembic, water glides lightning
kites, clouds are blue at night, wet
sheets, fierce flush of sleepers' heat
the way tin roofs sing water's
pounding, ground a skin taught, drops
arrow back toward the messengers
from where they came, and then fall, small
craters along the dirt road, run to muck
then as if it cannot decide to be
this way or that
above the grave of its individuality, coastal
waters pummelled by rain, water sluicing
from the land, billows carrying insects, leaves
recent corpses, falling, off the edge
that liquid piano fast like arroyos
flushed with maddened rocks, old tree
branches leaving home for a new life
disbursed matter feeding the chemical sea
reseeding that which would come to be me
heat of midnight under netting
living here is living under the sea's
uterine alembic, water glides lightning
kites, clouds are blue at night, wet
sheets, fierce flush of sleepers' heat
the way tin roofs sing water's
pounding, ground a skin taught, drops
arrow back toward the messengers
from where they came, and then fall, small
craters along the dirt road, run to muck
then as if it cannot decide to be
this way or that
above the grave of its individuality, coastal
waters pummelled by rain, water sluicing
from the land, billows carrying insects, leaves
recent corpses, falling, off the edge
that liquid piano fast like arroyos
flushed with maddened rocks, old tree
branches leaving home for a new life
disbursed matter feeding the chemical sea
reseeding that which would come to be me
when histories take the shape of pillows
like
now on the bed lying in this
June night with the crows abed
and the skunks roaming
here I am rooting
under the warmth left by aging blankets
each pulled thread singing in sheep-shaped voices
the blanket's warped hands unfolding
and the feathers!
all the eider tales flapping
through blue ticking
a quill to the soft pouch beside the eye
such material histories, night's roil
undoing each small slip toward self's dissolution
it's hard to tumble into sleep
those oceanic miles
burnt smell of water
when night squanders the dark's shy might
June night with the crows abed
and the skunks roaming
here I am rooting
under the warmth left by aging blankets
each pulled thread singing in sheep-shaped voices
the blanket's warped hands unfolding
and the feathers!
all the eider tales flapping
through blue ticking
a quill to the soft pouch beside the eye
such material histories, night's roil
undoing each small slip toward self's dissolution
it's hard to tumble into sleep
those oceanic miles
burnt smell of water
when night squanders the dark's shy might
weeding
instead
morning
glories abandoned
in the blackberries
horned orchestras to acapella
with their torn roots heaped
upon carrot and potato peelings
how hurt I feel, the fragmented
air of a dead squirrel's tired passing
the remaining of the pair, the white
blossom eaten two days later
amidst the hardening thorns, and the crow,
its moored feathers still lay
winded by the flying cars
if I could listen to the clamouring
blades, would I let go the grass verge,
spit ink to blot the street, death's
complexity plowed into white space
and even margins
in the blackberries
horned orchestras to acapella
with their torn roots heaped
upon carrot and potato peelings
how hurt I feel, the fragmented
air of a dead squirrel's tired passing
the remaining of the pair, the white
blossom eaten two days later
amidst the hardening thorns, and the crow,
its moored feathers still lay
winded by the flying cars
if I could listen to the clamouring
blades, would I let go the grass verge,
spit ink to blot the street, death's
complexity plowed into white space
and even margins
Pearl Button lives in East Vancouver, Canada. Her poetic works, including visual poetry, appear in Otoliths, Peculiar Mormyrid, Skink Beat Review, Surrey Muse, and Caliban Online.
